I've appreciated very much the opinion of Moviebob in this series, especially the willingness to go against other critics (like the Star Trek review) that has generated real respect for his reviews in my mind. So, that brings me to this disagreement: Beowulf.

The animated version of Beowulf was atrocious in the same way that Troy was atrocious. It had nothing to do with the animation style, which was very cool and offered up a lot of possibilities for visual presentation of the story. These possibilities are never capitalized upon sadly and where the tale could have garnered some serious cred as an animated film (the dark, twisted settings in the poem) it falls unhappily flat.

So while I do enjoy and appreciate the reviews on this point Moviebob I must disagree. Beowulf didn't suck because of it's visual style, it sucked because it murdered the core of one of the most brilliant works of literature ever.

And yes, I get that I sound like a pretentious scholar here, but I'm okay with it. Read Beowulf and some of the work written about it, it's worth the time.

I gotta say I really enjoyed 9, I even saw it two days in succession. Please don't misunderstand bob when he says the story is thin, it is not a bad story it's just there isn't a whole lot of it. This only detracts from the film if you don't take it for its merits, and wholly it's pretty great. Additionally all you people who are saying I'm going to wait for a rent, don't. Films like this need support, and you definitely won't enjoy it nearly as much as you would in the theater because it's a very cinematic piece.

DayDark:nice of him to list a few mature animated films, gotta catch up on those, and I like that he showed Titan too, that film is alright.

I was honestly let down by Titan A.E. I mean, it was directed by Don-Fucking-Bluth, had beautiful artistic design, almost seamless integration of cel- and computer-animation. Yet, once you watch the movie a second time, the story makes you go "Bwuh?"

I mean, Scientist creates genetic database of all loving things on earth, "evil" alien energy-beings attack and destroy earth for no clear reason, boy finds genetic database and discovers that the only way to power it is to consume the entire species of energy-beings.

Bwuh?

There has to be something that happened before the Cale was born where there was some sort of animosity between the humans and the Drej because Cale's father had to have planned to power the Titan with the Drej while building it. It would make sense, then that the Drej would want to destroy Earth, home to the species that is actively trying to wipe them out. But this is never developed, nor understood by the audience until after the Titan is activated, creating Planet Bob (which, by the way, is the best part of the movie)

The creation of the Titan was what set the Drej off. The Drej wipe out any species that they find a threat to them(Just their home planet basically, but you get the point).

Now, we don't know when the titan was created, or cale if was born before or after the titan, so it's possible that either the father had implanted the location map in himself, and was passed down was Cale was born, or that he placed it in Cale via some other way.

This is exactly what I'm hearing other people say about the movie. Bummer.By the way Bob, I just discovered your Game Overthinker blog on ScrewAttack and Blogspot. I gotta say you just upgraded to my favorite blogger. I think you really bring up some very interesting points here and there. Now I wish I could actually meet you and just chat it up a bit,

TheEnglishman:Why would people want to forget Wanted? It was a brilliant piece of simple action that was supported by good special effects and brilliant cast and credible enough story that was coated over with the afformentioned good stuff, you know, kind of like Jason Statham movies.

Anyway, it sounds 9 is somewhat like Avatar, relying on the beauty and technology rather than any actual substance. I'll probably give it a watch.

I'm going to go ahead and slate that film simply because it was based on a lie. If it was an original project, then cool, but just like Resident Evil, I don't forgive that which claims to be an adaptation but is instead resembles the source material from name only and by that name garners profit by suckering fans of the original work. Plus, I didn't like it a great deal, but perhaps I'm bitter.

And while you have good reason to compare 9 to Avatar based on what we've seen and heard (that it looks amazing, not much else), it's not out just yet.

I haven't seen the movie yet. I'll might check it out. I'll wonder when you'll do one of those movies. You know ? The ones that tries to be Oscars movies. Instead of that franchises movies or popular movies...

TheEnglishman:Why would people want to forget Wanted? It was a brilliant piece of simple action that was supported by good special effects and brilliant cast and credible enough story that was coated over with the afformentioned good stuff, you know, kind of like Jason Statham movies.

Anyway, it sounds 9 is somewhat like Avatar, relying on the beauty and technology rather than any actual substance. I'll probably give it a watch.

Wait, you've seen Avatar?? How can I get in on that??

Seriously, though, I will definitely see 9, if I can, and there's little-to-no way you could know that Avatar doesn't have a good story, unless you are currently working on it.

dracoslayer16:I wanted to watch a video review, not you spouting your strange views on japanese manga readers. Instead of blabbering on about non-movie related crap maybe you should have written a more thorough review of the actual film. I haven't seen 9 yet and this review barely said anything useful. Most of your other reviews are decent but this one was just plain annoying the whole time.

Go read any other review of "9", you'll see that they ALL say there is not much to talk about. The movie is a beautiful set piece, but there is almost no story to talk about. The characters are derivative and stereotypical, which oddly is something that Timmur Bekmambetov touted as a good thing about the movie.

I think that his aside against otaku, and in particular that special subset that believes no animation created anywhere else in the world can ever be as adult and mature as the "adult and mature" animation that comes out of Japan, to be extremely topical and on-point. Just because you took offense, perhaps because you ARE one of that special subset, or at least like to think that their idiot argument holds water, doesn't mean that MovieBob didn't thoroughly review "9" in this video.

In my opinion their is no "true" representative on who makes the best overall cartoons for all genres, though i do believe that "japan" has a better Classical Mature show to crap ratio,

Then America does, i mean dont get me wrong, i myself believe in all that pixar does and the batman animated series are probably the most mature thing to come out of america but let's compare that for a moment to say persopolis (An awesome adult cartoon movie) from france or the psychological drama Neon Genesis Evangelion from Japan, and maybe, just MAYBE, it could be that America is just a small step behind from various other countries and the way they do "cartoons." Cause ive seen cartoons from different countries that deal with many things like economics, mythology from various cultures, culture benders (you know theirs a show that combines tim burton's madness with Harry Potter and a bit of grim reaper mythology o.o?)

Hell maybe were just not good with cartoons anymore like the old days, i mean hell, take this for an example,

"When it comes to drama tv shows, in my opinion, Mexico tends to have a better classic to crap ratio compared to other countries making their drama tv shows, but that doesn't mean i recognize it as a representative sample of worldwide drama tv shows, it just seems that Mexico tends to have more series output each year based on very kinky drama compared to other countries"

Edward

P.S. I feel a bit peeved that he'd insult us right off the bat like that just because the "extremists" believed that this wouldnt have a chance against Japan, I myself was hoping that this would start a much needed revolution in order for america to pick up the pace in the cartoon department, sadly no.

Good review but I'm going to have to disagree about Beowulf, which missed the point of the text and replaced it with an incredibly generic and predictable storyline. Most reviewers seem to have marked it highly based on the animation style, but in terms of plot and dialogue it's infinitely inferior to Beowulf and Grendel.

Well, I never was entirely sure if I was going to see this one or not but now maybe I'll just give it a miss until rental.

The aside about "otakus" was interesting as I admittedly used to be one of those people and at times did go on about when something I see in a movie or tv series had already done much better by some Japanase anime (or "those damn Chinese cartoons" as we know call them). Makes me cringe just to think about it.

Also, I agree, they really need to put that stitchpunk thing to rest. It makes me wonder what []punk genre they will come up with next. If "atompunk" (bleh)/retro-futurism (yay!) encompasses the 50s, maybe the next era they will look to will be the 70s, in which case we will likely end up with "Punkpunk". But I digress.

I like the emo kids rant part XD So 9 is avrage movie that uses most of current visual technology, that means it will be soon forgotten as the technology itself will be overcome by something better soon. It might be a good movie to show my mom so she can enjoy some relaxing child entertaiment XD

As much as I hate to admit it, the rant on weeaboos was really what made this video worth watching.

But this is mostly due to the fact that I have never heard of 9 before.

Though, what I do appreciate is that Movie Bob always puts his deepest darkest opinions out there no matter how different or non-PC they are.

He's the kind of guy who would watch a movie like ''My Sister's Keeper'' and then say that it sucks and it tried a little too hard. While saying that a movie that while critics hated, he legitimately enjoyed it and was worth watching.

dracoslayer16:I wanted to watch a video review, not you spouting your strange views on japanese manga readers. Instead of blabbering on about non-movie related crap maybe you should have written a more thorough review of the actual film. I haven't seen 9 yet and this review barely said anything useful. Most of your other reviews are decent but this one was just plain annoying the whole time.

Go read any other review of "9", you'll see that they ALL say there is not much to talk about. The movie is a beautiful set piece, but there is almost no story to talk about. The characters are derivative and stereotypical, which oddly is something that Timmur Bekmambetov touted as a good thing about the movie.

I think that his aside against otaku, and in particular that special subset that believes no animation created anywhere else in the world can ever be as adult and mature as the "adult and mature" animation that comes out of Japan, to be extremely topical and on-point. Just because you took offense, perhaps because you ARE one of that special subset, or at least like to think that their idiot argument holds water, doesn't mean that MovieBob didn't thoroughly review "9" in this video.

In my opinion their is no "true" representative on who makes the best overall cartoons for all genres, though i do believe that "japan" has a better Classical Mature show to crap ratio,

[snip]

P.S. I feel a bit peeved that he'd insult us right off the bat like that just because the "extremists" believed that this wouldnt have a chance against Japan, I myself was hoping that this would start a much needed revolution in order for america to pick up the pace in the cartoon department, sadly no.

The problem with the extremist otaku is that they're accomplishing the exact same thing as the regular people who think that "cartoons are for children only", they are not giving any animation that comes from America, or anywhere else in the world, the chance to show that they can handle mature stories. The only thing the otaku do differently is that they worship anime as the penultimate animation instead of writing all of it off.

This is a problem, because in order for animation in general to be accepted as a worthwhile medium for storytelling, it has to be accepted as a whole, and the extremist otaku are shooting themselves in the foot on that matter because they are doing absolutely nothing to convince the "cartoons are for kids" folk because they are saying almost the same thing.

These extremist otaku will say that movies like Persepolis and Pixar's Up, will never succeed at having the same depth of characters as say, Ghost in the Shell or Spirited Away by virtue of the fact that Persepolis and Up were not produced in Japan. This is a load of bullshit, and those otaku need to wake up to that fact.

And by the way, there is little difference in the Good vs. Crap ratio of anything anywhere. There are just as many crap movies compared to good movies that come out of Japan as there are crap movies compared to good movies that come out of the US or Europe, same with Books, TV, Music, and other forms of digestable entertainment. The only difference is that the US has a much larger budget to make stuff, so we see a lot more crap come out of the US; and we don't see as much of the crap that Japan produces because they don't release it overseas like they do their good stuff.

I mean, if you want a good look at some of the crap anime that Japan produces, scour the lists of anime titles licensed by American publishers, especially in the past 10 years. There are only so many good animes to license; once you license them all, and you think as a publishing company you can make more money the more anime licenses you have because anime is selling like hotcakes in the US, you have to begin licensing the crap anime as well. I mean, do you remember Fighting Foodons? It was on Fox on Saturday mornings about 12 years ago, it was a battle show like Pokemon, or Byakugan, or fucking Yu-Gi-Oh, except the fighters were chefs, and their combatants were the food they made. Seriously, and the more skilled you were as a chef, the stronger your food would be in combat.

I agree that the spectacle and action sequences were definitely the high light of 9 and that the story narrative was lacking. The characterization was flat and the narrative just could have been more. The world that the director/writer had created definitely had potential to become a very nice epic storyline, but it didn't. I feel that the director wanted to push it, but hesitated because he felt it wouldn't attract kids. He should have just gone all the way and pushed the envelope, but oh, well. I'll probably get it on DVD just cause I enjoyed it and it's something I can see myself reliving, if only for the visuals, music, and fight choreography. However, I'm not sure why people found the ending confusing. He reverses the polarity of the device using it to suck out his friends' souls thus rendering the Brain without energy. And then released the souls later on so that they could merge once more (being the doctor's soul split into separate individuals) and ascend to heaven, or whatever. Granted that's an obvious summary of what everyone saw, but I thought it made sense. It seems that the professor was a bit of an occultist and melded technology with sorcery or alchemy. Granted, it doesn't really explain why the hell he built a mystic talisman into the exterior console of his big Brain machine, but, whatever. Apparently he did and it back fired. It's not a perfect movie, but it sufficed for me (though I'd still take WALL-E and UP over 9 any day).

MightyMouse:Good review but I'm going to have to disagree about Beowulf, which missed the point of the text and replaced it with an incredibly generic and predictable storyline. Most reviewers seem to have marked it highly based on the animation style, but in terms of plot and dialogue it's infinitely inferior to Beowulf and Grendel.

Five stars for making the point I did with 500% less text... I have no restraint.

I haven't seen it yet, but this review didn't change my mind about going to see it in theaters soon-ish (whenever I get a break from homework. Damn new major.)

I do have one comment on the review though, Mr. Bob, about the characters. The characters are supposed to be one-note. Each one represents something different about the professor/humanity. So, while this may make the characters seem flat, I think it was intentional to highlight different groups of people. Like the stubborn, old, defiant number 1 resembles some level of government everywhere, thinking that they know best and being unopen to any sort of change.

Oh thank god, I thought I was the only one who thought the ending was terrible. I had a feeling that this movie was going to only be so-so. You can tell because Tim Burton's name slowly started to fade away the closer the movie got to release. If it was a masterpiece, than that guys name would have been bigger than the title. Then everyone would of associate the movie with Burton. Just ask Henry Selick.

Might go see it, might not. I like good visuals to go along with a movie, but if the story isn't compelling and turns out to be one predictable mess, then it seemed like it'd be a pass for me.

Still don't fully understand Otakus, though. I see a cartoon/anime and it's usually going down the tracks of Naruto, Full metal alchemist, Dragonball, or some other generic cartoon/anime I could care less about and is targeted to children or is going towards FLCL, Samurai X, Moribito.

Of course, this is subjective and I don't doubt there's some Naruto-fanatic who is prepared to explain how a LOUD and obnoxious child in a bright orange jump suit can possibly be a ninja.